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Loading... Lord of the Vampiresby Jeanne Kalogridis
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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 044022442X, Mass Market Paperback)After the death of his half brother, Stefan, at the hands of Vlad Tsepesh--also known as Dracula--and after the destruction of his vampire father, Arkady, also at the hands of Vlad, Abraham van Helsing has traveled the world slaying many vampires. With every vampire he destroys, Bram becomes stronger and Vlad weaker, and soon Bram hopes he will be able to finally kill the fearsome vampire who has kept the Tsepesh family enslaved through a centuries-old blood ritual.But a desperate Vlad and his vampire great-niece, Zsuzanna, summon help from the most powerful, brutal, and beautiful vampire of all--Countess Elizabeth of Bathory. Bram learns of their plot to destroy him, and makes his own move to strike out at Vlad before Vlad can put him to death. He teams up with a courageous band of humans as he hunts Vlad--including Mina Harker and John Seward--and they finally succeed in killing the head of the Tsepesh clan, just as Bram Stoker foretold in Dracula. But the terror does not end with the death of Vlad, for there is another force that drives Vlad, Zsuzanna, Elizabeth and all the vampires, an ancient entity more evil than anything Bram has ever encountered: the Lord of the Vampires. And for Bram to defeat this dark lord, he must once again risk losing his very soul, to save not only his family, but humanity as well. In her final book in The Diaries of the Family Dracul trilogy, Jeanne Kalogridis brilliantly melds her own fascinating story of the Tsepesh family with that of Bram Stoker's classic, Dracula. Told in diary form like the first two books and Stoker's own chilling tale, LORD OF THE VAMPIRES reveals the dark, startling truths behind the original Dracula. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:55 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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This is the most seductive novel of the series, mainly because of the retelling not only the familiar Bram Stoker original "Dracula" but also augments the story by introducing the legend of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who lived some 150 years after Vlad Tepesh (Stoker's vampire model). Elizabeth is accused of living a life of debauchery and patronage of occult arts as well as the murder of some 650 virgins in order to bathe in their blood. Imprisoned by clerical authorities for 5 years of interrogation on the eve of the horrific Thirty Years War of religious doctrines, she was never convicted. The Bathory family included Duke Stepan of Transylvania who ascended the throne of Poland and Lithuania by marrying the daughter of the last Jagellonian king and then proceeded to roll back the conquests of Ivan the Terrible. The real facts of this time are more interesting than the vampiric literary inventions.
This novel begins with Vlad's journal entries about wartorn Bucharest in 1476, but it swiftly moves to the more familiar territory of Transylvania and London in 1893. There, it follows the starving Count, his vampiric niece, Zsuzsanna, her servant, Dunya, and their undead cousin, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, as they lure mortals, such as Jonathan Harker, into the castle to feed on them.
Meanwhile, the noted vampire slayer Abraham Van Helsing awaits Dracula's arrival in London. Using powerful paraphernalia he attempts to foil the family curse and decipher the angelic Arminius's motives. Other characters, such as Mina and Jonathan Harker, Dr. Seward, and Lucy Westenra, also make appearances but not necessarily in the same way as in Stoker's classic.
With its descriptions of iron maidens and flaming pokers it would be hard to call this a kinder, gentler, vampire novel, but Kalogridis reconciles the forces of light and darkness in a manner likely to please fans of justice and the genre. Kalogridis really knows how to use history and the myths of vampires to her advantage and weave them into a tale that anyone interested in this type of genre would want to read. If you're a vampire fan like I am, better hunt down these books (yes, pun intended).
Book Details:
Title Lord of the Vampires (Diaries of the Family Dracul)
Author Jeanne Kalogridis
Reviewed By Purplycookie (